The Perils of Phishing, Smishing, and Quishing

By Catherine Powell

Image courtesy Pixabay

The ongoing war being wrought by hackers has been taken to a new level with a triad of tricks designed to make you cough up personal data, financial info, and credit card numbers.  Unlike many of the brute force techniques employed in the past, phishing, smishing, and quishing are meant to kill you with kindness by offering fantastic deals that are never delivered.  Some of them are so intricately crafted that you'll think you're working with a trusted entity only to find out after the fact that you've been had.  Before you fall for any of these false flag attacks, I'd like to take the time to educate you on the latest and greatest e-scams yet to have been invented.

The Hidden Menace of Mold

 By Catherine Powell

Image courtesy Pixabay

There's a fungus among us.  At least there is when it comes to household mold.  A member of the fungi family, mold loves warm, moist environments, which make them particularly fond of my home state of Florida.  Mold has been known to grow on everything from drywall and tile, to wood, fabric, glass, and even paper, sometimes digesting the material upon which it grows.  Unlike the birds and the bees, fungus can reproduce either sexually or asexually by emitting spores that are so minute that the tiniest puff of air causes them to waft far and wide. While most forms of mold are benign, some can cause allergic reactions or even render a home uninhabitable.  Last but not least, the cost to remediate mold infestation in a home can be expensive, and in many cases it isn't covered by homeowner's insurance.  Before you wind up being menaced by mold, there are a few things you need to know.

Are Medical Billing Errors Making You Sick?

 By Catherine Powell

Image by gpointstudio on Freepik

It should come as no surprise that the United States ranks highest  for healthcare costs in the world.  In 2022, healthcare spending hit an all time high of $4.3 trillion, which averages out to nearly $13,000 per person. That's nearly twice as much as that of other developed countries.  Three reasons our costs are so much higher include inadequate industry regulation, soaring drug costs, and billing fraud.  If all this isn't bad enough, another factor that makes healthcare less and less affordable for the average American has to do with billing errors totaling $54 billion in 2020 alone.  If you're sick and tired of being overcharged for services you may or may not have received, or you're worried sick about getting treated for fear of being overcharged, here's what you need to know.

10 Ways to Save Money on Auto Insurance

 By Catherine Powell

Image courtesy pxhere

I have good news and bad news when it comes to Florida auto insurance rates.  The bad news is that the cost to insure vehicles in the Sunshine State has increased by an average of 17% over last year.  This has to do with a number of factors, including hurricane damage, the high number of uninsured motorists in the state, an uptick in auto thefts, and rampant claims fraud.  The good news is that if the cost of insuring your vehicle in the coming year has you seeing red, there are many ways you can reduce your premiums without breaking the bank.  Below is my top-10 list of ways to reduce the cost of auto coverage.